Following Destinies
by Stonecreek
Summary: All A:tLA drabbles, all the time. Any requests gladly written. Drabble #12 - The name Freedom Fighters is a bit misleading, considering the actions of their leader.
1. Toph, Lullaby

**A.N. - **Welcome to my collection of Avatar: the Last Airbender drabbles. None of these should be over 500 words. Nothing is off limits, so request whatever you want to see. After this opening set of five, I'll pop a drabble up every time I write one, rather than posting in batches. Lastly, I don't own A:tLA, nor do I profit from this work in any way.

**Character**: Toph

**Prompt**: Lullaby

**Words**: 150

**Rating**: K

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The Earth sings me better lullabies than my mother ever could.

The squiggle of worms in loose-packed dirt is like music to my senses. The badger-moles making the very mountains tremble is a concert only I can hear. The soil is my stage, and I feel like a conductor of it all sometimes.

My mother tries, in her own way, but she's unaware of the benchmark for comparison. Her melodies cannot live up to what's come before. She sings to me each night, refined little songs delivered with a genteel voice. She never puts her full force behind any of them – so un-Earthbender of her.

I sense the smiles she gives me as she bids me good night are genuine, but subdued. So like her, and so unlike me. And as I pretend to drift off to sleep, my love for her reminds me of her lullabies – sweet, yet lacking.


	2. Iroh, Lightning

**A.N. –** I like Iroh, but I feel he's hard to write for, for some indefinable reason. Ah well. I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender, or profit from this work in any way.

**Prompt**: Lightning

**Character**: Iroh

**Words**: 150

**Rating**: K

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Iroh was the Dragon of the West, a Grand Lotus in the Order of the White Lotus, a former general in the world's strongest army. Still, there were things that were beyond even him. He was reminded of this every time he used his own bending creation.

He had done something that no one else before him had – he had taken the sky's manifested fury and redirected it. The coursing of so much power through one individual frightened him just a little bit. It also made him wonder if, in the moment where the lightning flowed through his system, this was the way the Avatar felt _all the time_?

Iroh's family, always near the forefront of his thoughts, was brought into even sharper relief each time he bent lightning to his will. After all, if he could redirect _that_, how hard could correcting the paths of his wayward kin be?


	3. Sokka, Distance

**A.N. –** Set 2-3 years post-series, from Sokka's POV.

**Prompt**: Distance

**Character**: Sokka

**Words**: 250

**Rating**: PG

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Sometimes it feels like the only reason we get together anymore is to keep updated on what's happening in each other's lives. There's not much reason to visit Kyoshi Island otherwise.

Sure, we get news from the Fire Nation royals, but it sounds perfunctory, full of unnecessary verboseness. In other words, I know Zuko and Mai never once touched the letters sent here that bear their names.

I can't begrudge Katara and Aang their time alone. The Avatar's duties are far-reaching, and I'm just happy that when his downtime rolls around, Katara is there to share it with him.

Toph…well, nobody really knows what Toph is doing until she shows up out of the blue. She tells us it's the best way to keep her parents off her case, but I have my doubts. Being tied down to one place will never be her cup of tea.

This is not to say I am not happy here. I have Suki, after all. And she has a regiment of trained combatants that ensure our time here will be as blissful as we want it to be. But on days like this, with all the chores done and the activity around the village slowed to a crawl, I sit back and miss what I had before.

But then Suki invariably comes and finds me, and her presence always reminds me of one of those simple little truths that are often overlooked – the distances we bear only make the reunions that much sweeter.


	4. Aang, Choking

**A.N. –** Just wanted to do an Aang POV piece, and it ended up being about spirit-bending.

**Prompt**: Choking

**Character**: Aang

**Words**: 100

**Rating**: K+

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When you're choking on every breath, screaming into the void only to hear your words echoed back with all the flaws amplified…

When you're spent but still moving, struggling against the inexorable bonds of history dragging you away from your duty…

When your world is not black and white but a burst of violently bright colors and your brain cannot process the right or wrong that the shades signify…

When it all pours over in one overwhelming crescendo, when the air tastes pure and the body finally responds and the blur crystallizes into cohesiveness…

A spirit swayed, the will stayed.


	5. Zuko, Juggle

**A.N. –** Set during Zuko's segment of "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," from Jin's POV.

**Prompt**: Juggle

**Character**: Zuko (and Jin)

**Words**: 250

**Rating**: PG

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I'll admit it: when I first saw him in the teahouse, all I thought was that he was cute. The hair was perhaps too unkempt (and his personality even more so), but I was drawn to the good looks and the mystery of the scar that somehow did not diminish those looks. I couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but he had an air of subtlety that his persona did not belie.

I asked him out, just wanting a fun evening out and a chance to really get to know my newfound interest. I ate my noodles unabashedly in front of him, hoping my relaxed demeanor would in turn cause him to loosen up. Still, he remained rigid and awkward – almost as if his mind had already left and traveled elsewhere.

With each question I peppered him with, his mask of careful control fell a little bit more. It didn't take a genius to gather that he was lying – or at least omitting a good deal of the truth – and I wanted to find out why. He was evasive about just about everything. So I proffered what was at hand and told him to juggle.

As it all fell to pieces around him, I wondered if the juggling act he was performing within was faring any better than the one I bore witness to. I smiled and offered to leave. After all, there are only so many things you can keep in the air for so long before the balance is upset.

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**A.N. #2 -** I said it at the start, but I'll say it here again after the first set: I would like requests to fill. It helps me get out drabbles faster if I have a deadline, so to speak. You don't even have to review - just PM or e-mail me. Thanks for reading, and I hope you stick around for future installments.


	6. Ty Lee, Silence

**A.N. –** I like to make the happy characters more sullen when I write them.

**Prompt**: Silence

**Character**: Ty Lee

**Words**: 200

**Rating**: K+

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Ty Lee talks to be noticed. This is plain enough to see, with so many siblings left to clamor for attention. Silence, in her view, is equal to death – a nothingness from which one cannot be reclaimed. Silence is like her family life; she's neatly buried and rarely paid any mind when mute.

Ty Lee talks because she grows to enjoy it. It is fun to get a rise out of Mai, or see Azula's lips curve into a smile/smirk that is all she'll allow herself of good humor. She keeps the conversations flowing so as to feel included rather than conscripted into some semblance of friendship with the princess.

Ty Lee talks so the silences don't speak volumes to her. Late at night, when left all alone and stillness has settled in, she will clutch her braid and hold rhetorical discussions with herself. Sometimes they are whispered fervently under breath, others simply a melding of thoughts in the mind. She talks to keep the crushing weight of muteness from overwhelming her. She talks until the words weave an aura around herself, pink and pleasing and pure and _her_.

Ty Lee talks so as never to be lost, ever again.


	7. OzaixUrsa, machinations

**A.N. –** So sorry for letting this slowly-forming collection languish. Fall is just a rotten time for me due to work, and it leaves little room for anything fun, including writing.

**Characters**: OzaixUrsa

**Prompt**: Machinations

**Words**: 525

**Rating**: K+/T-ish

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The knowledge of Avatar Roku and his lineage hung over Ozai and Ursa's marriage like a pall. Which of his children, Ozai wondered soon after Azula was born: which of his children would be inherently righteous thanks to that damnable blood? This kept him up and night; it was, in fact, one of the few things he could not hide from Ursa. The intentions concealed behind his eyes were another, fleeting glimpses that Ursa took to heart yet tried to bury.

There has been love there, once, or at least the semblance of it. Then the couple added to their family, and the word family quickly became a misnomer for their situation. Over the years, it grew clear who was and was not in Ozai's good graces, and whatever love there'd been became a mockery of itself. Ursa withdrew as much as society and royal obligations would allow, taking the extra time to cross the invisible divide between the factions and take Zuko under her careful watch. She had a vision for her future, one that was rapidly crumbling, and Ursa wanted desperately to preserve something worthwhile from her time as Fire Lady.

Ursa tried not to think of her grandfather, the unknowing cause for all the strife in her and her brood's lives. Yet his memory was intertwined with her upbringing, and that caused conflict with the life she led now. She was as loving as possible to her son, all the while trying to steer Azula in a more reasonable path. She poured all of herself into the inner workings of keeping the Royal Family together. There was no way her hand could be played subtlety enough; she knew this, and she knew Ozai knew. The eyes and the sleepless nights attested to this.

Then Ozai burned a reminder of disfavored blood into Zuko's face. Ursa, for the first time, regretted her ancestry.

A hooded cloak was donned, to shield her identity – from others and herself. Urua had to work hard to push back in her mind the sense of justice inherent within her – indeed, within any descendant of the Avatar. For her, there was only duty now – duty to saving that which could be saved, and ending that which impeded her aims. She bid her children farewell and ghosted one last kiss across Ozai's sneering, cold lips. The vial he passed to her as they parted chilled her more, and his whispered final words of control momentarily froze her.

Ursa would follow through with this and disappear. It was what Ozai wanted, but Ursa could see further down the line. She could feel the burning tug in her veins pulling her to disavow the past to keep from forsaking the future. The constant awareness of where she came from guided her, led her to one conclusion: the Avatar was right. She had one chance to make true the promise his idea held. She had fought bitterly to keep the world from crumbling around her and failed. But that was past now.

A knock echoed on Azulon's door, and the gear was set in motion for the hour to come round at last.


	8. Boomerang!

**A.N. –** I really need to start fulfilling the requests I've received. So, a Toph and Sokka piece for Lunacat13. Not shippy, just friendshippy. Sorry 'bout that. I will try to update more frequently, as I actually have some time after Christmas.

**Prompt/characters**: TophxSokka

**Words**: 150

**Rating**: K

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Toph could metalbend; this was indisputably true. Sokka, at the moment, fervently wished that wasn't the case.

"Boomerang!"

Toph looked as aloof as she normally did – an impressive feat considering the circumstances. Sokka's precious weapon lay at her feet, more resembling a pretzel or a bow than a hunting implement. Sokka knelt down and gingerly picked the boomerang up, casting an accusatory glare up at Toph. A shrug of the girl's shoulders was his only response.

"Toph, how could you? Out of all the metal things you could've picked, you just _had_ to choose the one that meant the most to me." He flung the boomerang and watched it careen back to the ground ungracefully. Toph's neutral expression shifted to one of mild annoyance as her handiwork landed with a thud nearby.

"Snoozles, I may be the world's greatest Earthbender, and a metalbender to boot, but even I need practice."


	9. Ache, ?

**A.N. -** Sorry once again to let this slowly growing collection languish. I've been off reading fanfics instead of writing them. I don't own A:tLA, and don't profit from this.

**Prompt:** Ache  
><strong>Character:<strong> ?  
><strong>Words: <strong>300  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T

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The bones in his hand throbbed like fire from the inside out. Bending did not feel like this, ever. He wasn't sure if anything was _ever_ supposed to feel like this, but then a spasm of pain lanced through his nervous system, and the thought was vaporized. All that was left was to try and survive.

Through a haze of indistinct shapes, he tried to bend with the hand that did not resemble a kneaded lump of dough, and failed. His breath caught in quickly fading clouds as he struggled for air. The sounds of combat returned, closer and more ferocious than before, and he was not sure if he could see or move well enough to escape this time.

Weary and half-conscious, he moved to a sheltered, shady spot where the wind did not bite and the acrid smell did not linger. He leaned up against a stone wall and fought to stay coherent. They were coming. It was over. He tried to fight these thoughts as he'd fended off the intruders, but both efforts were waning.

A burst of light interrupted his vision, shadowed over by the silhouette of an armored man. He tried to sit up straight to meet his fate, tried to appear calm on the outside as his insides fell to pieces. He heard the towering figure ask if he had any last words, but he chose not to respond to the sneer he heard in the words.

His world was lit in brilliant oranges and reds, and all he could think was – this is the last, I am the last, last last lastlastlast. Monk Gyatso felt the heat, the pain, and let a tear fall. _Aang_.

Somewhere out to sea, an iceberg drifted, its occupant unaware of how true his master's final thoughts were.


	10. Evanescent Empathy

**A.N. –** March is truly a horrible time for me, work-wise. I did not mean to let this sit for so long without an update. I was actually working on one of the prompts I was given when this poem came to me instead. Sokka is the poet of the group, so I set this through his eyes about Katara.

**Characters**: Katara (and Sokka)  
><strong>Prompt<strong>: Storm  
><strong>Words<strong>: 150  
><strong>Rating<strong>: K

**Evanescent Empathy**

It rained for four straight days  
>and there was nothing you could do to stop it,<br>not sure at first if you wanted to or not,  
>but your mantle seemed too important to drop.<br>You bent fruitlessly at the heavens  
>yet still the water came,<br>a summation of the days gone by  
>rained down in a litany from the menacing clouds.<br>Cold, it was allowed to soak you through,  
>as if the effort of holding the deluge back<br>was too much weight to bear on a frame  
>already burdened with so much.<br>The pelting of drops in your hair could do nothing  
>to drown out all the problems you took on as your own<br>and only now you wondered, shivering,  
>was this push and pull not truly yours?<br>Did you let the moon and sea become you?  
>Was it the sky's tears you were trying to stop<br>or your own?


	11. Die By The Drop

**A.N. –** Fulfilling a request for an anon reviewer. Crack pairings…gotta love them, though this one's a bit WTF. Title was taken from the Dead Weather song, but it has nothing to do with the drabble; I was just listening to the CD while writing this. I also had a bit of fun with alliteration.

**Title**: Die By The Drop  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Azula/Hakoda  
><strong>Words<strong>: 200  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T

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It was the facial hair, she decided. Not that she had a daddy complex, mind, but the beards really did it for her. It gave her a little something to yank on, to crush his face to hers.

The Water Tribe chief fought against the Fire Nation princess – as much as his restraints would allow. His teeth gnashed, grinded, clenched as the teen's tongue made a mockery of his mouth. Blood was drawn, on both sides, dripping down in a scarlet memento of scars being formed.

There was a burning, deep and low, one that had nothing to do with the tendrils of smoke trailing from the fingernails raking taut biceps. The skin on his arms would be ribbons soon, and she wanted to see the look in his eyes deflate from defiance to defeat as she dissected him piece by piece.

But, despite it all, he would not meet her gaze. That would have to change.

She cupped his chin in her hand, stroked the hair there, then set it afire. Finally the eyes, a startled cerulean, locked onto hers, questioning amidst the pain and trying not to show either.

She sneered. "It had to go…and so do you."


	12. Jet, Vitriol

**A.N.**: Familiarity with the episode "Jet" is highly recommended. Also, working 65 hour weeks is hell for finding time to write.

**Prompt**: Vitriol  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Jet  
><strong>Words<strong>: 400  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T

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The Fire Nation had wronged him – deeply, irrevocably harmed him in ways he might never understand. But this could motivate him. This indisputable truth was the foundation for Jet's every action. After the murder of his family, he had to find the will to move on from somewhere, and the searing pain of what had happened was the easiest to follow through on.

In time, the Freedom Fighters that Jet gathered around himself came to embody the sense of loss and hurt he carried with him at all times. They became the family that had been taken from him, but it was never the same. As chummy as they all appeared on the outside, within them churned with discord.

They all had their ways of dealing with the lot life dealt them. Smellerbee clammed up and hid behind a façade of a bully. Longshot had the clammed up part down, but he let out his frustrations by practicing with his bow until his fingers cracked open. Pipsqueak joked and The Duke rushed around trying to soothe everyone's frayed nerves, but no one ever saw what Jet did when he needed to blow off steam.

Jet never let his gang see him at his most vulnerable, when the anger clouded his vision and drove him to violence. If it was directed at the occupying soldiers, so be it, but the line had started to blur the longer he carried his crusade on. Jet's family of the displaced became the guerilla army of a boy's unending war.

And then the Avatar and his pulled-together family stepped into his life. The embodiment of balance in the world shone an unkind light on the skewed nature of his. Blindly committed to his cause (for he knew no other way), Jet plotted revenge and executed it well. Blowing the dam was a catharsis he didn't realize he needed. If this was the only way he could feel fine, what would he do next?

Then Sokka came and sent his world crashing down with the news that his plan was for naught. The culmination of all his work, of his life from then to now, was this: the scorn of a true family and a torrent of vitriolic words. And as he stood there, bark digging into his back and ice working its way through his clothes, he could only direct all the anger at himself.


End file.
